


Bound

by bygoshbygolly



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Blood Magic, Gen, Ghosts, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 15:31:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7690006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bygoshbygolly/pseuds/bygoshbygolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bokuto wants to help his new friend, and ends up changing both their lives</p>
<p>written for SASO 16</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bound

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt:   
>  _There was no limit to our bond._  
>  — Ptolemy's Gate, Jonathan Stroud

Once upon a time, a boy met another boy in a park. They quickly became friends, and the boy was delighted at his new friend's ability to pass through objects without any difficulty at all. They played for several hours, until the boy noticed the sun beginning to set, and realized he had to go home.

“Do you want to come over for dinner?” he asked his new friend. The other boy shook his head.

“I can't.”

“Why not?” His new friend sighed.

“Because I'm a ghost, and I can't leave this park.”

“That's stupid,” the boy declared, and thought for a moment. “I know!” He hunted around for something sharp, and found a piece of old glass by a trash can. Biting his lip, he cut the heel of his hand.

“What are you doing?” his friend demanded, and, rather than answer, the boy took his hand and cut it too. His friend hissed, surprised at the pain, surprised at the silver cut that had somehow appeared on his hand, when for as long as he could remember he had never been able to touch anything, let alone be hurt. The boy pressed their bleeding hands together.

“Friends forever!” he said. “Now you say it.”

“Friends forever,” his friend echoed. As he said the words, he felt something. A heat in his hand blazing out through his body. A feeling of solidity. Then nothing.

–  
The boy's mother, who had been on her way to collect her son, discovered him lying on the ground, hand clasped in another boy's, and the park smelling of heat and blood and magic. The boy's mother was a witch, and she knew immediately that either her son or the other boy had worked some spell of great power. She called a friend, who was an expert in magic that smelled of blood, to help her figure out what had happened, and carried the boys to her home.

The expert examined both children, and after spoke to the boy's parents.

“It seems Koutarou has an extraordinary amount of magical power,” she said. “He has bound himself and his spirit to the boy somehow. The boy cannot stay here though, for he is leeching life and magic from your son, and I worry that he might kill Koutarou without meaning to.”

The woman then took the ghost boy with her, for she had always wanted a child, and promised to keep in contact with Koutarou's parents.

“See what he remembers when he wakes up,” she said as she left. “I cannot say how the magic will have affected him, or how this link will affect him in the future. I will come back if it seems that anything is wrong.” Koutarou's parents thanked her, and were quietly relieved to see the color come back into their son's cheeks as the ghost boy got farther away.

When Koutarou awoke, three days later, he remembered nothing about that day. The only sign anything had changed was the silver scar on his hand, and the fact that his hair was now white.  
–---

Ten years passed, and both boys grew. Koutarou was bright and loud, full of energy and magic. While his spellcasting was poor, he had a gift for instinctual magic, and often made up spells to please himself. And yet there were times when his magic and energy both seemed to wane, and he would fall into a dark mood. His hair remained white, and while his parents had dyed it regularly as a child, he grew less and less pleased with the practice as he got older.

Tetsurou was more thoughtful. He worked hard at his magic, which could be erratic, and found ways to compensate. Strangers had a tendency to overlook him, and so he found ways to make himself noticed. His hands were cold and his mind was sharp, and his mother was very proud of him. She sometimes wondered if he would ask her about the red scar on his hand that had never faded, or why he could not remember anything before the age of five, but he never did. Perhaps he knew, or guessed, but as he never spoke of it she did not feel it would be right to ask.

The two boys met again, as they were always meant to. Their spirits were bound, after all, and you cannot keep such a bond apart forever. As soon as Tetsurou's team entered the gym, there was a spark in the air, and Koutarou's head snapped up.

Their eyes met, and, though neither boy could say why, they both smiled. They each felt a sense of rightness, of being whole, although if you had asked them previously neither would have noticed any feelings of incompleteness.

They played well that day. Koutarou was more focused than usual, while Tetsurou jumped higher and faster. And if their hands ached along their old scars, well, that was surely the result of hard work, not magic.

After the match, they introduced themselves immediately, and spent the rest of the afternoon talking. It was as if they had always been friends, they fell into conversation so easily. They parted reluctantly, trading emails and phone numbers and promising to meet up soon.

–---

That night, each of the boys told their mothers about their new friend.

“Oh?” said the mothers. “That's nice.” Was that fear in their eyes; was the smile on their face not entirely honest? If so, the boys didn't see, and if they noticed the flurry of late-night phone calls their mothers made, well, adults were always strange, weren't they?

–---

The two boys met up more and more often over the next year. Each meeting was accompanied by that same sense of rightness they had noticed that first day, and, while they both dearly loved their other friends, there was a sense of understanding they had with each other that they had never encountered before.

It was on one of these meetings that Tetsurou saw it. A thread, red touched with silver, coming from Koutarou's hand. He spotted it from the corner of his eye, and, unthinking, he reached out to touch it. There was the smell of heat and blood and magic, frustratingly familiar, and he grabbed Koutarou's hand. The boys yelled, and the memories of that day, eleven years ago, came rushing back.

“I was dead,” Tetsurou said, staring at his hands. He could see his thread now, more silver on his end than red. “I was dead and you...what did you do?”

“I don't know,” Koutarou breathed, his eyes wide. “I just wanted you to be able to leave. And I wanted to be your friend.”

“You bound us, somehow. Blood magic.” Tetsurou ran his hands through his hair in agitation. “I was stealing your life. I was so empty and so cold, and you had so much...”

“It's ok,” Koutarou said, shrugging. “Everyone always says I have too much energy, if you ever want more.” Tetsurou laughed, but the sound was empty of mirth.

“I'm not even _real_. I'm only here because you had too much magic and didn't know any better.”

“You _are_ real!” replied Koutarou hotly. “Of _course_ you're real. You have friends and a life and we were apart for eleven years, and I would do it again anyway.” Tetsurou stared at him.

“I-” he started, but his usual gift with words seemed to have deserted him.

“And you would do the same, right?” Koutarou pressed. Tetsurou sighed.

“I would. I don't know if it's because of the bond or because you're _you_ , but I would.” Koutarou beamed, and Tetsurou felt warm.

“Friends forever?” he offered. Koutarou took his hand.

“Friends forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...and then they smooched.
> 
> In an ideal world I would go on to write about how this bond changed them and continues to affect their lives. Hopefully it'll happen


End file.
